McLaren 12C Spider review

Like the coupé, the integrated daytime running lights are a clone of McLaren's upside-down Nike tick badge

The 12C's distinctive side air inlets - also a nod to its badge - are designed to turn the air flow into the radiators

The front splitter, which comes finished in black as standard, creates downforce

The rear wing adjusts its position depending on speed, under braking its deployed as an air brake

The rear diffuser is also finished in black. Carbon items are optional.

The McLaren's seat backs won't recline fully when the chairs are in their rearward positions

Rotary toggle switches change the powertrain and suspension settings

The major gearbox controls, handbrake, roof and window rockers are on the lower centre console

The climate controls are mounted on the door rests

The McLaren's navigation system is controlled by a single large rotary dial, a touchscreen and a few buttons

The boot - in the front - is better than most of the mid-engined supercars

The twin-turbo 3.8-litre V8 generates 616bhp at 7,500rpm

0-100mph takes a little over 7sec

The exhaust system can be upgraded with a sports item made out of Inconel

The 12C is supremely quick and composed

The McLaren handles in a fairly neutral manner

With the ESP off it's easier to unsettle the rear

The 12C has not suffered in any respect as a result of the removal of its roof

Close

We wouldn’t usually run another road test on a supercar, in this case the McLaren 12C Spider, just because it had been de-roofed since we first drove it, but such are the depth of changes that McLaren has effected on the 12C since we road tested it in June 2011 that it seems worth revisiting.

Prior to the 12C, McLaren’s only standalone sports car was the F1 – the 1992-1998 sports car that astonished the world, could reach the far side of 235mph, hit 60mph in 3.2sec and 100mph in 6.3.

And although McLaren was heavily involved in the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, it would be 17 years after Autocar’s 1994 road test of the F1 before we were able to road test a pure McLaren again.

It wasn’t like the 12C was anything like a failure the first time around: we awarded it a 4.5 star rating, just half a star shy of our maximum score. But also, painfully, half a star shy of the rating we’d given the Ferrari 458 Italia, and we were hardly alone.

If you were in the market for a sub-£200k mid-engined supercar, we reasoned, Maranello would be where to send the cheque.

Since then, however, McLaren has been beavering away to make changes with the kind of speed that only a motorsport-based team can envisage, and this Spider – which was always in the model plan - has arrived with a number of alterations over the launch-spec 12C.